1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for managing image data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Before the spread of digital cameras, prints generated from silver salt photographic films were used dominantly, and such prints are still used in various manners. For example, prints are used for confirming how photographs look, for communication with friends by viewing them together, for sending additional prints to friends, for display by enlargement, and for generating photograph albums. However, such prints simply accumulate if the prints are not organized in a proper manner. In the case where some of prints or negatives are lost, proper arrangement thereof becomes difficult. In addition, classification according to themes is a time-consuming task. Even in the case where prints have been organized, some of the prints or negatives may be taken out and not returned. Therefore, maintaining the prints in an arranged state is difficult.
For this reason, photograph images are stored as digital data by reading images recorded on negatives with a scanner or by using image data obtained by a digital camera. However, such digital image data are often stored in a hard disc of a personal computer owned by a user, and moving the image data is a troublesome operation in the case where the user purchases a new computer. In some cases, image data are stored in a recording medium such as a CD-R. However, the recording medium itself can degrade, and the image data may be lost during long-term data storage. Furthermore, an apparatus for reproducing image data in a specific recording medium may become unavailable due to the technology becoming obsolete. In this case, reproduction of the image data itself cannot be carried out.
Therefore, an image storage system has been proposed for providing a service of storing image data sets in an image storage server by sending the image data sets via a network such as the Internet. In some cases, the image storage system can even improve image quality by carrying out image processing such as automatic set-up processing on the image data sets stored therein.
In the image storage system, property information, comprising items such as the date of photography, a parameter for the automatic set-up processing, and color information, is usually stored attached to the image data sets. A user can access the image storage server via a terminal such as a personal computer, and can view the image data sets or search for a desired one of the image data sets with use of the property information as a keyword.
However, searching for a desired one of the image data sets is difficult if the property information alone is used as the keyword. Consequently, an image storage system enabling a search according to information on a photographer or a subject (such as the name of a person in the case where the subject is the person) or a photography location has been desired, and the information described above needs to be incorporated as the property information.
Meanwhile, the image data sets stored in the image storage system described above are assumed to be used by a number of people. However, an owner of the image data sets may not wish to disclose the property information or wish to disclose the property information only to a limited number of people, since the property information on the photographer or the subject is related to privacy, although the information that can be extracted from the image data sets, such as the information on the date of photography or color, can be open to public.
Moreover, in the conventionally used image storage system, the property information is described in tag information of the image data sets. Therefore, an increase in data size of each of the image data sets cannot be avoided if an amount of the property information becomes large. However, although a user of the image data sets does not necessarily wish to have all the items of the property information, all the property information is downloaded at the time he/she downloads the image data sets. Consequently, downloading becomes a time-consuming and inefficient operation.